1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method of a GPS control system with communication functionality and, more particularly, to contacting different base stations in different areas to obtain status updates.
2. Description of Related Art
A vehicle with a conventional global positioning system needs receive a global positioning satellite signal at predetermined time intervals (1, 2 . . . or 5 sec, etc.) to obtain the current longitude/latitude location of the vehicle, the velocity of the vehicle, altitude, etc.
Please refer to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 illustrates data content recorded by a prior art GPS recorder. Typically, the application of information as applied to a GPS control system and an electronic map operate together in a coordinated fashion. When an emergency condition arises (such as a break down), the user will generally need to contact a service center via a wireless device (such as a mobile phone) to contact the base station. Contact may be actively done by the driver, or automatically by the GPS control system. Since the location of the vehicle may vary, the appropriate base station will vary as well. Therefore, it is necessary to provide a method or system that selects a proper base station to improve the communication quality and to reduce communication costs.
The object of the present invention is to provide a method for providing communication between a GPS control system and a base station, for a system that is installed in a vehicle. When the GPS control system needs to contact the base station, the present invention ensures that a proper base station is selected to improve the communication quality and to reduce communication costs.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for quickly searching a proper base station. According to an embodiment of the present invention, location information for various regions is stored in an information database. The information database utilizes at least one rectangle to describe each region, and each region includes two location coordinates to define the rectangle. Searching speed of an appropriate base station is thus improved.
To achieve these objectives, the method of the present invention includes the following steps:
Step A: obtaining a current location coordinate of the vehicle;
Step B: searching contact information for a related base station according to the current location coordinate of the vehicle, the GPS control system including an information database, the information database recording location information for a plurality of regions, and contact information for a plurality of base stations associated with the plurality of regions; and
Step C: setting a searched base station as a contact base station.
Other objects, advantages, and novel features of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.